Analysis of the Votes for Richardson City Council

The voters have spoken. The votes have been tallied. The new City Council in Richardson has been seated. Another council term is already underway. Before we get into all the issues to be faced by the new council, let's take one last look back to see if there are any surprises to be found in a precinct-by-precinct vote analysis.

After the jump, crunching the numbers.

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Using unofficial final election results supplied by Dallas County Elections office, here is a precinct level look at what happened in each of the five contested races for Richardson City Council.

Bob Townsend carried every precinct in the city. His smallest margins of victory were 13% (Duck Creek, Diana Clawson's neighborhood) and 20% (Berkner Park, William Gordon's neighborhood), both precincts in his own southeast Richardson (Place 1). Overall, his margin of victory in southeast Richardson was a blowout 36%. Northeast Richardson (Place 2) was his weakest area, if a 32% margin of victory can be described as weak. On the west side he carried southwest Richardson (Place 3) and northwest Richardson (Place 4) by 51% each.

Mark Solomon lost only one precinct, that by a scant 5 votes (245-240). That's the precinct that includes Sherrill Park, Owens Park and part of the Yale Park neighborhood. These are in Solomon's own northeast Richardson, which he carried overall by 23%, his weakest district. He carried southeast Richardson by 34%, southwest Richardson by 39% and northwest Richardson by 47%.

Laura Maczka carried every precinct by double digits, save one. That was southeast Richardson's Precinct 1713, which includes the Duck Creek neighborhood, which she carried by a still comfortable 8%. Overall, she carried southeast Richardson by 39%, northeast Richardson by 41%, southwest Richardson by 61% and her own northwest Richardson by 57%.

Kendal Hartley had the lowest overall margin of victory of any winning candidate, a still large 23%. He lost four precincts, all in the northeast, including the Place 2 neighborhoods of Sherrill Park, Owens Park, Yale Park, and the Place 1 neighborhood of Duck Creek. He carried northeast Richardson overall by 7%, southeast Richardson by 13%, southwest Richardson by 35% and northwest Richardson by 26%.

Amir Omar lost only one precinct, Diana Clawson's home neighborhood of Duck Creek in southeast Richardson. This was Omar's weakest district, but he still carried it by a comfortable 17%. Omar's second weakest district was also on the east side, northeast Richardson, which he carried by 19%. On the west side, he carried southwest and northwest Richardon by 37% and 36%, respectively.

Overall, two things stand out in this precinct level look at the election results. First, all the winning candidates won convincingly in all areas of the city. The city has about 25 voting precincts*. With four contested races in those 25 precincts, making about 100 precinct-level results to study, the winning candidates lost only five. That's a convincing victory, not only overall, but precinct-by-precinct.

Second, if forced to identify any weakness at all in the mandate given the winning candidates, it's the east side neighborhoods of Sherrill Park, Owens Park, Yale Park and Duck Creek. Perhaps that shouldn't be surprising, in that the most contentious issues of the past two years were the plan to reconstruct the Lookout Drive Trash Transfer Station and the plan for development at US 75 and PGBT. The projects were supported by the Place 1 and Place 2 council members Townsend and Solomon. There was organized neighborhood resistance to both of these projects. Still, even these districts voted for the incumbents by very comfortable margins, which suggests that the opposition, while vocal, does not speak for a majority of voters even in that area of Richardson closest to those issues.

Tomorrow: What implications all this has on Richardson's election districts and method of electing a city council.

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* There are four precincts with 0, 4, 11, and 20 registered voters. Some of these may be exceptions to statements above where I count how many precincts a candidate may have failed to carry.